A blog about gardening in the city. (Oh, who am I kidding? It's about whatever I'm in the mood to babble about for the day - usually my obsessions du jour. Right now those are mostly gardening, bread-baking, and cooking.)

Monday, June 1, 2009

Gardening Depression

I just went out into my garden to check it's progress for the day, and I'm really depressed. My broccolini that I was so excited about looks like it's being eaten. The biggest and most promising plant is falling over, and many of the others are turning yellow and have holes in their leaves. It's gotta be some kind of bugs. The same thing seems to be happening to my spinach. (A gardening friend of mine who planted hers at around the same time says hers is almost ready to eat.) And my little carrots that were starting to come up have disappeared. How can that happen?! And my basil and marigolds are getting eaten, too. I thought those were supposed to be the plants that are so disgusting to bugs and other critters that they'll even stay away from plants nearby. My tomatoes still look awful, too. I was starting to think that they were perking up, but I changed my mind after tonight's inspection. We have had a lot of rain, but I just don't know. Oh, and my two little watermelon seedlings got eaten. It probably doesn't help either that my husband and kids play baseball out there, and I'm sure the ball has landed on my plants more than once.
Patience is not my strong suit, but I think I can manage to wait for things to grow. On the other hand, if they're not going to make it, I should get started on replacements from the farmer's market soon. It's so sad to think that my little seedlings that I nurtured inside for so long and looked so healthy might not actually survive. I guess that's all part of gardening - trying different things to figure out what works, but it's not exactly quick feedback.
Trying to think more positively, my peas are doing great, and my Forellenschuss lettuce is still looking good along with the mesclun. Oh on that note, another thing that's bumming me out is that I bought two beautiful bunches of Romaine from the farmer's market this past weekend and my fridge must be too cold, but it looks pretty much inedible after a night in there. I totally should have just left it out. The pepper plants look good although I did spot a hole in one of the leaves today. I'm really going to have to figure out what's eating them. Oh and my cilantro is up after I'd almost given up hope - I guess that's a good lesson. I pinched off a little leaf to make sure that's what it was, and it's funny how even when it's so little, it still has that distinctive cilantro smell. Maybe things will be looking up by farmer's market day this weekend then I can decide if I want to replace anything. Although I have to confess that I already replaced most of the broccolini with some eggplant plants that I bought there this past weekend. I got varieties called Little Fingers and Prosperata. I discovered that I really like eggplant after trying this caponata recipe from Epicurious. (Oh, I think I mentioned that in another post already, sorry.) Although I have to admit, I've only had it that way and in Eggplant Parmesan. I wonder if you can freeze eggplant. Let me know if you have any good eggplant recipes.